Cultural Theory and Popular Culture
Cultural Theory and Popular Culture is a 2009 text by John Storey aimed at providing an overview of cultural theory and exploration of what constitutes popular culture and why such culture is worthy of study. The book offers a survey of what Storey identifies as some of the core forms of cultural theory and how they can be applied to the problematic elements of popular culture. What Is Popular Culture? Storey begins by first identifying culture, utilizing Raymond Williams' approach which defines culture as the overall process of "intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development" that can also be the particular way of life for a group or a time period that is often manifested through "the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity" (p. 1-2). Culture, in Storey's estimation, exists to facilitate the creation and justification of intellectual and creative works. Because ideology is a core component of cultural studies, Storey also takes time to define it, using the standard definitions of systematic bodies of ideas from a given group that may potentially distort or present otherwise false images of reality and influence the overall power relationships in society; Storey also points out that ideology can be used to refer to the forms that ideological culture may take (such as television, movies, or other forms of popular culture) or the unconscious meanings such media may carry as well as the rituals a population may undertake. Storey also provides several definitions of popular culture due to the often contentious debates over the meaning of the term. Popular culture may be: * That culture that is liked by many people * The culture left over after society has decided what "high culture is" * Culture aimed at a mass audience (this often suggests that popular culture is inherently commercial in nature) * Culture that originates from "the people" rather than imposed upon them by cultural elites and "the above" (p. 9) * Culture that is the domain of an ongoing aesthetic debate between dominant and lower classes * Virtually indistinct from high culture, in the postmodern view Regardless of what definition one chooses to use, Storey identifies that popular culture is a form of culture that comes into prominence after the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, popular culture is "historically variable" and different theoretical perspectives have focused on different elements of it (p. 14). The "Culture and Civilization" Tradition Storey suggests that popular culture has historically been a source of concern for those in power, due to its perceived ability to represent and encourage unrest or potentially destabilize the social order. Storey begins by analyzing the work of Matthew Arnold, who conceives of culture as being that which is "the best that has been thought and said in the world" and that which encourages reason and brings out the best in humanity (p. 18). Culture, in Arnold's view, is also the "mental and spiritual application of what is best" as well as the pursuit of that ideal (p. 18-19). While Arnold never provides a formal definition for popular culture he does hint at its relation to anarchy and disruption among the working class, an outcome that culture itself seeks to avoid by providing guidance and control to the "social, economic, and cultural aspirations of the working class" via law-keeping intervention and instillation of the value of culture; Storey points out that Arnold was not alone among the early theorists who viewed popular culture as "symptomatic of a profound political disorder" (p. 20-21). F.R. Leavis takes Arnold's work a step further by applying it to the cultural challenges of the 1930s and concluding that culture is the domain of the minority, which keeps the finer and more easily lost parts of culture alive and instill a sense of what is valid and worthwhile and that which is not. In Leavis' view, this minority has gone from a position of unchallenged authority to being challenged by the subversive elements of "mass civilization and its mass culture" to the point where those in power no longer represent cultural or intellectual authority; Leavis correlates this with the rise of democracy (p. 24). The Leavisism approach harkens back to a "mythic rural past" of culture that is untainted by the need to appease commercial needs; in the modern world, the working class uses mass culture as an opiate that allows them to engage in "substitute living" (p. 26-27). While this perspective is often challenging, Storey points out its importance as one of the first attempts to engage popular culture on an intellectual level and provided a means of challenging preconceived notions of what is high culture and what is low culture. Andrew Ross suggests similarity between the struggle between mass culture and the authority of intellectual elites and that of the containment policy of the Cold War in that both attempted to maintain a healthy cultural environment from within so as to keep out creeping influences of mass culture (or Soviet ideology). Ross suggests three main positions in this debate (p. 28): #The aesthetic-liberal position that shows dismay over the selection by the mass audience of what intellectuals perceive to be subpar cultural works rather than the works of high culture #The corporate-liberal/progressive evolutionist argument that focuses on the ability of popular culture to act as a socializing agent to encourage consumption and capitalism #The radical/socialist position, which argues that popular culture is a form of social control instituted by dominant figures or cultural elites The first two positions were heavily prevalent during the 1960s, with Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White both claiming the "dehumanizing effects of mass culture", though Rosenberg suggests that this has a harmful effect on societal tastes and White instead contends that every society has had its own troubling forms of mass culture and that critics of contemporary popular culture romanticize the past (p. 28-29). Dwight MacDonald allies more closely with the former view, suggesting that popular culture is "parasitic" and feeds on high culture; it is fabricated to be sold and commodified and facilitate "political domination" (p. 29). Ernest van den Haag takes a slightly different approach, suggesting that popular or mass culture is the "inevitable outcome of mass society and mass production" because it is a product that must appeal to a variety of different tastes; mass taste has become important to facilitate cultural production in most countries (p. 30). Leslie Fielder goes one step further by pointing out the uniquely American characteristics of mass culture as a democratized medium of cultural rule by the majority; Fielder also argues that there is a distinct class hierarchy in American culture and popular culture reflects this hierarchy by acting as a means through which the classes interact. Building upon Fielder's notion of hierarchical culture, Shils notes that mass culture has reformed the landscape of what is considered what level of culture - no longer is there a clear distinction between high culture, medium culture, and low culture, the medium and low culture distinctions are less important; ultimately Shils contends that this will bring about social liberation and class identity. Culturalism Culturalism, as a means of studying popular culture, is characterized by its move to break away from previous theoretical distinctions toward the idea of using the "textual forms and documented practices of a culture" to not only learn about but also reconstruct the activities and behaviors of a culture, with a focus on the agency of those that live within the culture (p. 37). Richard Hoggart, in his work The Uses of Literacy, suggests that art has historically been used as a means of "intensification" of real life without being particularly challenged by it; Hoggart argues that popular culture is "too thin and inspid" to offer any sort of addition to or reification of life (p. 39-41). The pursuit of "having a good time", Hoggart claims, cuases those who use mass culture to essentially continually seek out exciting and interesting culture and overexpose themselves to it, thereby overstimulating themselves and dulling their capcity for appreciation and enjoyment without their realization. While Hoggart admits that the mass audiences using these forms of culture have their own moral and social traditions that allow them to interpret and adapt to the mass culture put in front of them, he still contends that it may have a deleterious impact on audiences because they will feel that they are unaffected and as such will be less critical and vigilant off th effects of media. Williams takes a more complex view of contemporary culture, identifying three major categories in the conceptual construction of culture (p. 44-45): *The "ideal", in which culture is the perfection of humanity and is timeless or continually relevant. *The "documentary", in which culture is expressed via those records of a culture that survive; these artifacts lend themselves to critical assessment *The "social", in which culture "is a description of a particular way of life" (p. 45) Williams argues that each of these aspects of culture is important and cannot be taken away; moreover there may be significant relationships between the three that demand inquiry and analysis. Moreover, there are different levels of culture and knowledge; a contemporary researcher would not share the lived experience of 19th century audiences but would find such records invaluable for analyzing texts. Williams does not separate art from activity at all in his thought; unlike Leavisism, Williams argues that culture is a "particular way of life" and that it must also define the "lived experience of 'ordinary men and women" (p. 47-48). Williams contends that creating dichotomies of high and low culture is reductive because individuasl may not necessarily be able to be reduced to the forms of media they consume. E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, a historical analysis of the titular phenomenon, tells the story not from a theoretical perspective but from that of the men and women who lived through it from the ground up. From these perspectives, Storey defines culturalism as "a methodology which stresses culture (human agency, human values, human experience) as being of crucial importance for a full sociological and historical understanding of a given social formation". However, if culturalism is used negatively, it is the perception that "culture is the effexct of structures beyond itself and that these have the effect of ultimately determining, constraining, and finally producing culture" (p. 51). In their book The Popular Arts, Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel break from Leavisism and most other forms of mass cultural research at the time by suggesting that "most high culture is good" and that "some popular culture is also good", putting the onus on the public to determine which is which (p. 52). The authors challenge the prevailing attempts to teach popular culture in the classroom, identifying that popular culture is often dismissed as inferior or used as a stepping stone toward so-called "real culture"; in either case the authors contend that such parradigns make actual inquiry or study difficult. Moreover, Hall and Whannel contend that the intent of the culture is important and as such culture must be judged on its own terms; they define a new category, "popular art", which is art that is not seen as failed "real" art but rather art that is created for and within the confines of that which is popular (p. 53).Moreover, popular art can rise above its mass-focused origins and context and become accepted as high art - in Hall and Whannel's estimation, the best will rise to the top. Effectively Hall and Whannel argue for education as a means of determining quality within mass culture rather than as an inoculation against it (p. 56). To that end, culturalists attempt to analyze culture to etter understand the lives and perspectives of those that consume and create it. Marxisms As Hardt discussed in Critical Communication Studies: Communication, History, and Theory in America, the Marxist perspective had a significant (if not entirely fully assimilated) impact on American communication studies over the course of their existence. Storey calls attention to them in his work as well, pointing out that Marxists perspectives are revolutionary by nature and tasked with "changing the world" by analyzing media texts through relation to their "historical conditions of production" (p. 59). Historically, Marxism contends that history and society is structured around the modes of production within the society. In a traditional Marxist perspective, society consists of a base consisting of the forces of production (workers and their equipment) and the relations of production (lord/peasant, slave/master, etc.). Where one falls on the hierarchy of class depends on their proximity to and relationship with the means of production. The superstructure consists of those institutions and collective consciousness that govern a society. Generally the base is said to "determine" the content of the superstructure while the superstructure serves to legitimize the base (p. 60). Generally, those who have control over the means of material production can also shape and influence the intellectual production of a society; this leads to the importance of analyzing cultural texts in their societal and historical contexts, though Storey contends that analysts taking this approach must be careful not to simply reduce everything to an economic analysis. In the 1940s, the Frankfurt School advanced a critical approach to the study of culture, with Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer discussing what they called the "culture industry", a general term used to refer to those that generate culture; in their estimation, much of what the culture industry put forth for mass consumption was both homogeneous and easily predictable, creating a sense of conformity and an environment in which social authority was upheld and the masses were discouraged from thinking outside of current confines; moreover they were outright discouraged from seeking change by essentially being happy about their situation. The Frankfurt school took the position that commodifying or commercializing culture essentially devalues it by making it too accessible; moreover the culture industry also took the role of organizing and dominating what free time the working class did have, extending social control and keeping their senses dulled. Storey suggests that while the Frankfurt school advanced in academic rigor and sophistication, philosophically it was still very much in line with the "culture and civilization" perspective. However, as Storey also points out, while they criticize the same things they do so for different purposes - the "culture and civilization" perspective claimed that mass culture threatened high culture and societal standards while the Frankfurt school was concerned about its ability to foster obedience and curtail independent thought among the masses. Building upon Marx while rejecting his more binary view of the world, Louis Althusser contributes further definition of the domain of critical and cultural inquiry both in terms of what is to be looked for and how texts can be read. First, Althusser suggests that problematics in texts consist not just of the text itself but also the ideas and underlying cocnepts going on underneath the surface; in this case "what is absent" becomes as important as "what is present" (p. 72). Althusser suggests that critical readings of texts must take into account not just the text itself but also the "lapses, distortions, silences, and absences" to produce what is called the "latent" text that lies beyond what is immediately obvious (p. 72-73). Pierre Macherey expands upon Althusser's perspective by calling into question the belief that texts have singular meanings and arguing for an approach that takes into account a "multiplicity of meanings" while also looking for what the text wants to say but cannot actually say as well as what the text may unintentionally tell us about the context in which it was created. Althusser also revisits his original perspective by adding the idea of Ideological State Apparatuses, or institutions such as schools, government, and family that reinforce ideological perspectives in culture; however, other theorists took issue with the idea that people could simply be convinced to adopt a certain perspective and called for another perspective. That perspective came in the form of Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, which suggests that a dominant class does not rule a society but rather helps to lead it through "intellectual and moral leadership" that is borne out of a sense of consensus in which a group attempts to paint its own particular beliefs and interests as the beliefs and interests of society as a whole. Because this process is by its nature a negotiated one it is an ongoing one as well, with dominant groups continually negotiating with and "making concessions" to subordinate groups; these arrangements are facilitated by so-called "organic intellectuals', who are individuals distinguished by their role in society and who act as an organizing force in society. Hegemony theory contends that popular culture is created as audiences consume and interpret the cultural products put before them, and often these products are "remixed" to create different systems of meaning that may be anthithetical to their original intent (yet they generally still operate within the confines of society). Overall, however, Storey writes that Marxism is not as influential as it used to be, as new post-Marxist perspectives take over, such as Ernesto Laclau's concept of discourse, in which all actions depend on the social construction of meaning and in which objects can take on symbolic identities independent of their articulated identities. Discourse, in Laclau's view, "informs and organizes action" and the articulation of meaning becomes part of the ongoing series of negotiations in society. This idea of assigning and determining meaning echoes through a great deal of post-Marxist thought. Storey condenses it into saying that while the world may exist outside of culture, it can only find meaning through culture; by describing reality culture essentially creates it. Moreover, because a text may have multiple meanings, the process of developing these meanings is ongoing and constant. Storey also sums up that post-Marxism is based at least in part by the idea that individuals create culture from the culture commodities that are provided to them and this in turn can either be an empowering or disempowering notion. Psychoanalysis Storey suggests that Freudian psychoanalysis may also be used as a means of analyzing cultural texts. Sigmund Freud, in many ways the father of psychoanalysis, suggests that society effectively oppresses human existence and as such the mind splits into two main parts - the conscious component that deals directly with the world, and the unconscious that handles "instinctual drives and repressed wishes" (p. 91). The preconscious is also there to store information that can be recalled with some effort. From there, Freud offers his comprehensive illustration of the human mind, which is comprised of the id, the manifestation of primitive and base desires, the ego, ''which represents the requirements and necessities of the real world on those desires, and the ''superego, ''which attempts to reconcile the two other components. The ''id ''wants immediate fulfillment of its desires regardless of culture, the ''ego must meet the demands of society, and the superego essentially offers compromise. Freud suggests that dreams are a way in which our unconscious mind manifests itself, and turns to dream analysis to uncover the latent or "real" meaning of dreams beyond their manifest qualities in a manner similar to how cultural scholars analyze texts. In dream analysis, the mind goes through a process of condensation, which often leaves out latent elements or only partially acknowledges them. It also goes through a symbolization process in which "dream thoughts" are essentially transformed into a sort of visual language or picture; finally the dreamer goes through a "secondary revision" phase in which they attempt to assign a narrative logic or sense and make connections between these random elements. For cultural scholars, this is useful because an author-centered focus of texts can essentially perceive them the same way a dream is perceived, with both latent and manifest content. The latent content in this scenario would theoretically represent an author's genuine desires. In a reader-centered approach, the analyst focuses on how the audience can symbolically project their own desires and fantasies onto the texts they read. This is similar in some respects to Althusser and Macherey's readings of texts. # Repression and Return; can be seen as a special form of amnesia, removes what we cannot or will not deal with. sleep is threaten in 3 ways; external stimulus, recent events, and the repressed for an opportunity to return. The first two can be solved ad find away to protect your sleep. in contrast, the repressed looking for an opportunity to return, needs help. * In the repressed looking for an opportunity to return theory of dreams are compromised structure; desires emanates from the id and are distorted by the ego. * for Freud; "dream is a disguised fulfillment of a suspended or repressed wish". why these conscious and unconsciousness is split because there is problem culturally. while the external stimulation are the material out of which dreams are formed, they are not the energy which creates the dream, that is the unconscious impuls-the desire. * the interpretation of dream: Manifest and latent Dream work * condensation; partial omission and combination of latent elements, * displacement; latent elements are replaced by distant representation; allusions, * Symbolization; translate latent into cultural symbols ( visual, sexual), * Secondary revision; how the dreamers remember and interpret the dream ( subject to ego), Jacques Lacan takes the psychoanalysis of Freud further by contending that individuals go through specific stages of life, governed by an overall sense of missing or longing known as "Lack". According to Lacan, we begin in the Real, a situation in which we do not understand or see a distinction between ourselves and the world (the Symbolic then serves to break this world up and assign meaning to its parts) (p. 101-102). In the Mirror Stage, we become aware of ourselves both as an individual who looks and as an individual that is looked at. In the second stage, the fort-da stage, language reinforces these views and makes us aware that "we are both object and subject" (p. 103). Finally, we go through an Oedpis Complex, which is "the encounter with sexual difference" that signifies a full transition to the Symbolic and reinforcement of the Lack. Several texts follow a similar approach. Laura Mulvey, another psychoanalyst, introduces the conccept of so-called "cine-psychology" with her idea of the "male gaze" in film. In a "male gaze" situation, the woman is both an object of male desire and a source of "threat of castration" and certain parts of the body are objectivied and focused. Essentially, the camera in a film acts as a male eye, taking the female characters in the film and submitting them to what Mulvey refers to as a "controlling gaze" while also engaging in the pleasurable act of scopophilia, or pleasure through looking (p. 105). Effectively, the audience becomes voyeur and the reinforcement of pleasure and value through objectification and visuals continues. In Mulvey's estimation, the world is in a status of "sexual imbalance" toward men - men look, and women try to be looked at, which is crucial to male desire. FInally, Slavoj Zizek hypothesizes that such imagery and indeed any imagery in the media can effectively not only become reality but also act as a screen for the airing of unconscious desires. Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Storey identifies structuralism as an analytical approach to studying texts and practices derived from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, who identified language as being defined into two distinct parts - first, the "signifier", or symbol that denotes a particular concept, and the "signified", which is the concept denoted by the signifier. In Saussure's classic example, the word "dog" is a signifier signifying the concept of a four-legged canine. Saussure claims that this means meaning comes through cultural agreement rather than any intrinsic connection between the two. Meaning is essentially established through determining differences between concepts and via the process of combination and selection - a sentence can be made to be very different by not completing it or by inserting different, unrelated words. Language, in a structuralist view, "organizes and constructs our sense of reality" (p. 117). Saussure also distinguishes between langue, or the system and conventions of language that determine what mutually acceptable communication is for collective understanding, and parole, which is how an individual uses this system. These concepts contribute to the structuralist perspective of text analysis, which focuses both on the underlying relationships of texts and practices and how the combinations and interplay of language create meaning. Taking this concept beyond language and into shared cultural stories and experiences, Claude Levi-Strauss suggests that myths work in a similar fashion, building upon smaller "mythemes" that in turn build up to larger mythic structures. Such mythemes include the introduction of "binary oppositions" that divide the world into mutually exclusive categories that are nonetheless reliant upon each other to construct meaning. Will Wright uses this perspective to pick apart Hollywood Westerns in terms of their shared characteristics and smaller mythemes. Roland Barthes adds to the structuralist perspective by adding the level of "signification" to to Saussure's concept of signifier and signified, suggesting that language and cultural artifacts may trigger a secondary level of meaning activated by an individual's pre-existing "cultural repetoire" and one's own position in society - essentially, the same thing may signify different concepts to different people (p. 121). Moreover, the addition of text or additional information may change the context or amplify the potential of a given image, moving it from a purely denotative perspective (this is a picture of a dog) to a connotative perspective (this dog represents poverty). However, without social knowledge to draw upon, the process of connotation cannot take place. Post-structuralists like Jacques Derrida take the tack that signifiers propagate more signifiers, and that there is a distinct power relationship implied in that which is signifier and that which is signified; for Derrida such relationships are not natural but something produced in the context in which the location takes place. Michel Foucault took a similar approach, identifying first that discourses enable (give users the ability to communicate), constrain (limit what they can say), and constitute (determines the characteristics of the individual). Power and dominance in society, Foucault argues, does not necessarily simply have a destructive or negative effect on discourse, in fact it essentially creates reality and produces "domains of objects and rituals of truth"; discourse can be used both to produce and transmit powr but also to challenge and oppose it (p. 130). Foucault suggests that society as a whole has essentially given up traditional forms of power for a more ubiquitous form of discursive control. Gender and Sexuality Since the 1980s, gender has been another source of cultural analysis, with feminism becoming a guiding theoretical process. Storey identifies four different forms of feminism: radical (female oppression is the result of male patriarchy), Marxist (females are oppressed by capitalism), Liberal (males are prejudiced against women and these prejudices are seen in law and other outgrowths of society) and dual-systems (the oppression of women comes as a result of both patriarchy and capitalism); moreover, much of the analysis of popular culture has suggested that men and women have a specific relationship to culture that is different from each other (p. 135-136). While Mulvey's notion of the "male gaze" was nonethelees influential in early feminist cinema studies, contemporary scholars have begun to challenge it. Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment contend that cinema and other forms of media are more than just the tools of patriarchy and capitalism, but rather they are a negotiated domain in which meaning can be contested. Jackie Stacey suggested that women saw movies for three different discursive reasons: escapism (both in terms of the film and the imagined sense of community one feels at the theater), identification (to project oneself onto the screen for a feeling of greater power and agency), and consumption. Stacey's overarching argument is that female viewers of film are more likely to actively negotiate the messages they see rather than simply being passively affected by it (p.139-140). Not all studies about the use of media by women have concurred on this point. Rosalind Coward contends that romance novels provide a very basic and often "regressive" fantasy that prioritizes and celebrates the power of the male in a manner that harkens back to a father-daughter relationship. Janice Radway in her book Reading The Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature suggests that women sought out stories in which intelligent and resourceful women fall in love with a man who is gradually turned into a more perfect, idealized individual through his relationship with the woman; Radway concludes that these stories represent a "ritual wish to be cared for, loved, and validated in a particular way" (p. 142). Radway expands upon this notion by finding that the romance novel fills an Oedipal void in the lives of many women to be in an "intense emotional bond" with a member of the opposite sex that fulfills a particular maternal need (p. 143). Ultimately, Radway suggests that a proper romance novel leaves a woman feeling fulfilled and validated about their relationship to members of the opposite sex and their own self-worth and ability, thereby reinventing "the patriarchal form of the romance" for their own use and self-actualization (p. 144). Storey interprets this as being both a form of sociocultural rebellion but also potentially as a means of reinforcing the notion that distant or violent men may simply just be waiting for the "right woman"; the latter would indicate that romance novels reinforce patriarchy though Radway does not quite reach this conclusion (p. 145). Similarly, while some females read women's magazines for information and other tangible benefits, Storey points out studies that argue that these magazines still reflect a capitalist/patriarchal view of what womanhood is and what sort of goals a woman should aspire to through the generation of desire. The issue, Storey argues, is that these ideas are built around an idealized "mythical individual woman" that does not have to conform to the same constraints as actual women. Rather than wringing hands over the effect of women's magazines on their female readership, Joke Heremes points out that the research often is (perhaps unintentionally) condescending towards female subjects, showing "concern rather than respect"; Hermes calls for a more post-modern approach that takes the reasons and rationale for while women enjoy particular texts into account rather than pitying them for not paying attention to those texts which are allegedly better. While Hermes suggests that such magazines (and arguably, other forms of media) may not be problematic in terms of how they offer empowerment, they may nonetheless offer at least some temporary form of empowerment on various levels. Not all gender studies are focused on feminism. Anthony Easthope and Sean Nixon looked at masculinity and determined that traditional forms of masculinity are not "natural" or "universal", and in fact are culturally defined gender norms reinforced by different forms of media. Paul Burston and Colin Richardson discuss queer theory as a means of looking at the relationship between LGBT individuals and society. Judith Butler, one of the founding theorists of queer theory, suggests that the notion of what is masculine and what is feminine is not based in nature but rather as a result of culture; she distinguishes between biological sex and culturally-defined gender. As Butler argues, "one is not born a woman but becomes one" but many also become "neither female nor male, woman nor man"; Butler suggests that performantivity is more important and heavily influenced by family and other institutions (p. 161-162). One's performativity and the gender or orientation with which they identify may also influence their patterns of consumption and the culture they choose to use; queer theory then concerns itself with how LGBT identities co-exist with a cultural environment that disparages and challenges them. Alexander Doty contends that "queerness as a mass culture reception practice is shared by all sorts of people in varying degrees of consistency and intensity" regardless of the orientation or gender with which they identify and essentially acts as a term that can address all rejections or contradictions of traditional heterosexual roles (p. 164). Race, Racism, and Representation Storey begins by pointing out that race is not a biological concept but rather one that has been reinforced by racist ideals from an arbitrary position and generally in terms of power relationships and politics rather than scientific or biological purposes. Race and the difference between "races" has historically been used to justify issues like the slave trade and white colonialism. Storey identifies Orientalism as another perspective which has been used by the West to maintain hegemonic and cultural power over the East, with stories of "white colonizers succumbing to the primeveal power of the jungle" or whites who impose their perceived cultural superiority and ability onto a native culture (p, 172). Still others are used to retroactively justify U.S. military occupations (particularly Viet Nam) or make the "other" appear more dangerous to cast sympathy on the white Americans in these situations; ultimately whether these are true or accurate depictions is irrelevant because they effectively create a mediated truth. In the case of Vietnam in particular, the costs of the war are heavily Americanized and the negative impacts on the native people are marginalized if they are depicted at all. Cultural studies have taken it upon themselves to combat racism and eliminate the notion of race as a biological construct. However, others have argued that race is difficult to get rid of because of its ability to direct "investgiation to the power that collective identities require by means of their roots in tradition" (p, 179). In other words, race has so thoroughly been indoctrinated into American culture that to study American culture one must take matters of race into account regardless of whether doing so accurately reflects the situation. Postmodernism In the late 1950s and 1960s, the postmodern movement began to take into account the idea that many of the works that had been seen as disruptive or shocking had instead become "canonized" and taken seriously by intellectuals; suggesting that the distinction between high and low culture was less meaningful than it had been before, challenging the modernist perspective of culture as the "best of what has been thought and said" and instead adopting the definition of culture as a "whole way of life" (p. 182-183). Jean-Francois Lyotard identified the postmodern situation as a "crisis in the status of knowledge in Western societies" due to the influence of metanarratives that use their "privileged truth" to drown out voices from the "margins"; Lyotard argues that science and education have both lost their ability to find truth, the latter in particular because the focus has been on developing skills rather than knowledge (p. 185). The new postmodernism, then, allows and encourages the contribution of marginalized individuals. Jean Baudrillard suggested that in current society it is no longer possible to separate the economic realm from that of "ideology or culture", due in part that the focus of the economy has moved from the manufacturing of tangible items to the "production of information"; postmodernism becomes in his estimation a study of the simulacrum because manufacturing and mass production have essentially broken down the barrier between the original and the copy (p. 186-187). Baudrillard claims that postmodernists should focus on the idea of the hyperreal, with that which is real and that which is imaginary constantly crashing into each other, creating a situation in which "simulations can often be experienced as more real than real itself" (p. 187). For example, the Express newspaper in the UK printed stories about the incarceration of a beloved soap opera character. Baudrillard also contends that hyperreal culture becomes more important as other forms of authority lose their power, though they also lead to a form of "endless cultural repetition" and take away the opportunity for struggle and adoption of new ideas (p. 191). Frederic Jameson puts the focus on capitalism, suggesting that as capitalism develops into its later stages postmodernism as the imminent "cultural dominant"; in Jameson's view, postmodernism is a "culture of pastiche" due to its perception of culture as constantly being reborn and adapted from previous forms of culture (p. 192). To Jameson, this means that "stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles"; even contemporary films, music, and television perpetuatre "certain myths and stereotypes about the past", creating a sense of "false realism" (p. 192-193). Jameson suggests that this leads to a form of "cultural schizophrenia" that eliminates the temporal significance of signifiers and recasts the time continuum as a present with occasional intrusions from the past or future rather than a contiguous timeline, leading to a loss of history (p. 193). Finally, Jameson argues that postmodern is inherently a "commercial culture" - rather than papering over capitalist activity it has become "perhaps the most important economic activity of all" (p. 194). In Jameson's view this sets postmodernism apart from other movements because there is no difference between the critic and the subject. (Sontag suggests a similar correlation between capitalism and postmodernism in On Photography.) Storey contends that postmodernism has raised the question of why some texts are revered and revisited while others are lost to the winds of time, and suggests that cultural studies begins by focusing on the power of texts - if it meets the needs of those with cultural power, the text will likely be more relevant. Pierre Bourdieu reiterates that distinctions of culture are important to the interaction of dominant and subordinate groups; he also seeks to explore how cultural distinctions serve to legitimize "forms of power and control rooted in economic inequalities" (p. 202). Because postmodernism does not dictate a difference between high and low culture, it begs the question of the impact of globalization. Storey takes issue with the notion that globalization of culture equates to Americanization of other countries, as it conflates economic success with "cultural imposition" as well as "inherent valus" that can be "imposed on passive consumers" and a perspective based on the "foreign" as a national distinction (p. 205-206). Moreover, because America has a number of different cultural characteristics not everyone who experiences American culture experiences the same elements of American culture and they have their own forms of resistance and adaption to exernal culture. The Politics of the Popular Storey begins the final chapter of the book by identifying the challenges present in cultural studies. Jim McGuigan points out that cultural studies must by necessity take into account political economy; moreover, the focus on consumption and "popular reading practices" has created a situation in which cultural critics no longer make judgments about what is good and what is bad in society. Storey argues that eschewing qualitative judgments raises the potential of more interesting and insightful inquiry due to the fact that qualitative value of culture can change in different contexts and when applied to different ends (p. 214-215). John Fiske contends that consumers have power in terms of what will sell and what will not, forcing culture developers to take into account consumer wants and needs; moreover, popular culture operates as a form of semiotic resistance against a dominant perspective. Michel de Certeau argues that consumption is not "dispersed" through culture itself but rather through the ways in which the consumer interacts with and uses media; therefore the meaning of the media is not imposed on the reader but rather they "poach" it and develop their own meaning (p. 222). These textual poachings act as a means of challenging authorial intent and imposed meaning; fans in particular develop intense intellectual and emotional attachments to content and can often use it to create their own original content. Fans often consume media as part of a group with other fans and develop their own culture through the circulation of interpretations and perspectives; as Henry Jenkins claims "organized fandom is ... an institution of theory and criticism, a semistructured space where competing interpretations and evaluations of common texts are proposed, debated, and negotiated" (p. 224). Effectively, fans attempt to create a "more participatory culture" than the one that asks them to observe content passively. Moreover, even the economic perspective is not monolithic. One company may reject "the latest youth subculture" while another attempts to embrace it and meet its product needs (p. 228). Similarly the culture industries are particularly non-monolithic and there is no guarantee that cultural products will be used for their intended purpose by the end audience. Storey contends that an anti-capitalist can still use capitalist products in order to protest a capitalist society, suggesting that "there is always a potential contradiction between exchange value and use value" (p. 231). Storey argues that a distinction must be made between the power of culture industries and the power of their influence, as people will often consume commodities based on the use they can get out of them as capitalist companies sell them based on their exchange (monetary) value (p. 232). To conclude, Storey suggests that cultural studies must accommodate for the fact that we live in a world dominated by capitalism and are "active participants in culture" (p. 234). In a post-Marxist environment, special attention must be paid to the "details of production, textuality, and consumption" in order to further cultural studies (p. 235). Effectively, Storey argues that cultural studies must find a means of operation that avoids both "anti-intellectualism" and "dismissive litism" in order to facilitate further discovery (p. 235). Category:Books